is there a chance to see gpl-drivers for the graphic card in:
-the ps3 (will sony or nvidia relase gpl drivers)
-the xbox

-how is linux for ps2...is there any graphic-card drivers???

my understanding is the ps3 uses a nvidia g70 chip clocked at 530mhz rather than the 430 the soon to launch nvidia 7800gtx {1} and since nvidia seems to have no intension of any opensource drivers i wouldnt hold out much hope.

there is one ray of hope and that is if sony see the light and embrace the linux developements you could see these ps3 boxes getting a much wider audiance as people start using them as mythtv/ tivo boxes which could realtime encode hdtv to the hardisk for later viewing not only would this vastly increase their potential market but as linux devs get stuck into the cell chip they will widen the community which understans the cell cpu.

as a side not due to the way the cell is designed im not that sure it will make a very good general purpose cpu but for encodeing it should be fantastic, not sure about compilling but then we need a gcc version 1st anyway

{1} interestingly they overclocked a 7800 to 500mhz and scored 9000 on 3Dmark05

"Porting Linux to run on Cells PowerPC core is a relatively easy task because of the similarities to existing platforms like IBM pSeries or Apple Power Macintosh, but does not give access to the enormous computing power of the SPUs.

Only the kernel is able to directly communicate with an SPU and therefore needs to abstract the hardware interface into system calls or device drivers. The most important functions of the user interface including loading a program binary into an SPU, transferring memory between an SPU program and a Linux user space application and synchronizing the execution. Other challenges are the integration of SPU program execution into existing tools like gdb or oprofile.

A model has been proposed to provide an interface that attempts to integrate well into the existing set of Linux system calls and enable software authors to easily integrate the use of SPUs into their own libraries and applications."

There is more info about author (He works for Ibm on porting Linux on The Cell )

Will this mean that we will have drivers for the graphics card?_________________Tim: the Enchanter: There it is!
King Arthur: Where?
Tim: the Enchanter: There.
King Arthur: What, behind the rabbit?
Tim: the Enchanter: It is the rabbit!

look at it here: http://www.free60.org/
and also from news websites...because there is no references about pseudo-illegal things into this wiki
I means that cracker's exploit aren't mentioned(people who crack the xbox360 in order to play back-up games...) in this wiki...

The XBox CPU is a triple-core 3.2GHz G5 (I think it's a G5, might just be another Power derivative).

No it's not. In fact, it has nothing to do with G5 (apart from both being POWER-CPU's). Here's the deal:

Cell is a in-order PPC-core surrounded by 8 (or 7, depending who you talk with) vector-engines. The PPC-core has multithreading (2 threads) and Altivec. IIRC, the clock-speed of the chip is 2.8 - 3.2GHz.

Xenon is the chip in Xbox360. And it's related to the cell. Xenon basically takes three of those in-order PPC-cores from Cell, and crams them on a single die. Each core has Altivec, and the clock-speed is 3.2GHz and each core does 2 threads (like on Cell).

Related to this: Since multi-core is basically multiprocessing on a chip, why do we have SMP-machines with 2, 4, 8 and so forth CPU's? why do we go to 4 from 2, and not three? Since we can have triple-core CPU's, why not have 3 and 5-way SMP-machines as well?_________________My tech-blog | My other blog

Actually... some machines can run with odd numbers of CPUs. I'm guessing that the likely explaination for those machines being rare, is that most manufacturers don't see the point. If they're going to go to the trouble of a 3-CPU board, then they may as well even things up and make it 4.

With a CPU terminator, I'd say a 3-CPU SMP machine is quite possible. I know machines like the SGI Origin 200 are capable of this -- grab a dual R10000 O200 and a single R10000 O200, hook them together with a craylink cable ... bang, instant 3-cpu machine._________________Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Actually... some machines can run with odd numbers of CPUs. I'm guessing that the likely explaination for those machines being rare, is that most manufacturers don't see the point. If they're going to go to the trouble of a 3-CPU board, then they may as well even things up and make it 4.

With a CPU terminator, I'd say a 3-CPU SMP machine is quite possible. I know machines like the SGI Origin 200 are capable of this -- grab a dual R10000 O200 and a single R10000 O200, hook them together with a craylink cable ... bang, instant 3-cpu machine.

What I would like to see on Opteron-machines (and other that have integrated mem-controller) is to have such "dummy-CPU", that would still contain a memory-controller and HyperTransport-buses. The idea would be that you could take these cheap "dummy-CPU's", plug them in the MoBo, and you could still attach RAM on that chip, giving the system more RAM and more bandwidth but no additional computing-power as such.

Haven't you worked that out? Obviously they want to slug you for the extra CPUs. _________________Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Haven't you worked that out? Obviously they want to slug you for the extra CPUs.

Well, yeah, that's the propable reason . But I think that they would make some extra money (and have uber-grateful customers) if they did something like that. Those "dummy-CPU's" wouldn't be that expensive to make, and they could have excellent margins on them (say, charge something like 50-80 bucks for each chip)._________________My tech-blog | My other blog

Lets not forget Nintendo. I must admit, i was not able to find any specs on the internal workings of the new Nintendo revolution - but, being a 3D fanatic, I found screenshots. It will obviously be rivaling the PS3 and XBOX 360. I will add my vote to the Playstation 3 though, because I have a problem with Microsoft, and I always liked Sony products, as well as Final Fantasy, and Twisted Metal series...

Rock on Gentoo Gamers..._________________Carry out the bigger will for your life....

Is anybody currently working on the Xbox 360?
If somebody would get Linux running on it, I think it would make a nice server
Sady, the Free60 project seems to have died, so I fear it's going to take a long time

there is one ray of hope and that is if sony see the light and embrace the linux developements you could see these ps3 boxes getting a much wider audiance as people start using them as mythtv/ tivo boxes which could realtime encode hdtv to the hardisk for later viewing not only would this vastly increase their potential market but as linux devs get stuck into the cell chip they will widen the community which understans the cell cpu.

as a side not due to the way the cell is designed im not that sure it will make a very good general purpose cpu but for encodeing it should be fantastic, not sure about compilling but then we need a gcc version 1st anyway

{1} interestingly they overclocked a 7800 to 500mhz and scored 9000 on 3Dmark05

Okay, guys, this stuff scares me.... I am all for experimenting with linux on different styles of systems, but Lets not lose sight of what this system or any gaming console's SOLE perpose... yah... If linux is to be attempted a game console (someone has to do it) then make act like a game console... Set up qjoypad and map the keys/mouse movements to the gamepad, and make glx the primary component inside X. I mean, these new high speed processors are around ONLY because of gamers, and spreadsheet software, text editing software, web-browsing software are all just trying to use the extra power for it - but the ultimate perpose be for 3d acceleration goodness... Plz dont bring the linux gaming community down by bringing game consoles back to general computing .... YUCK!!!

*just my 2 cents*_________________Carry out the bigger will for your life....

For one, Linux on the original Xbox will never support 3D gaming simply because we do not have the specifications for the GPU. Reverse engineering the nVidia GPU is also unrealistic.

Second... Games consoles make great servers - theyre small, powerful (at least they were when they were first released) and efficient. Why shouldn't we exploit them for these reasons? I'd rather have spent £150 on an Xbox than about £500 on an equivalent PC back in the day. It's insulting for you to say that turning them into "general" computers is doing the community a dis-service when so many people are enjoying the various Xbox-Linux variants.

Just because we turn them into servers or desktop replacements does not mean that the industry will slow down - remember, Linux is not what they are originally intended for. As long as the manufacturers continue to create them for the purpose of gaming, you have nothing to worry about. Turning them into servers should not cause manufacturers to change their design decisions.

Also, in case you hadn't realised - the original Xbox is just a "general" computer. Its has an Intel Celeron (Coppermine) 733MHz CPU, 64MiB of RAM and an 8->10 GB hard drive. It has a relatively standard GPU and sound codec. The only reason you define this as a games console is because Microsoft, by design, only allows it to play games. If you took it out of its case, put it in a regular PC case and installed Xbox-Linux on it you would barely realise you were dealing with anything other than a "general" computer.

Also, in case you hadn't realised - the original Xbox is just a "general" computer. Its has an Intel Celeron (Coppermine) 733MHz CPU, 64MiB of RAM and an 8->10 GB hard drive. It has a relatively standard GPU and sound codec. The only reason you define this as a games console is because Microsoft, by design, only allows it to play games. If you took it out of its case, put it in a regular PC case and installed Xbox-Linux on it you would barely realise you were dealing with anything other than a "general" computer.

Errm, I guess I forgot about game servers. WoW. But Still I HiGhLy stress that this is no general computer - It is specifically designed to be steller at playing games. I mean, I am totally a Mico$soft anti-fan, but they got it right when they intoduced all of the components of a computer in a game console. So I am just saying, I dont really see the point of trashing a very nice game console so you can fill one more hard disk with another distro. I have read people using the GPU with graphics acceleration, maybe it is somewhat "experimentle" - but hey, thats what we (at least we, gentoo) are all about. Not to mention this is a very small system, something I have seen go in backpacks etc. Dont force this action pack to a corner and thus lable it a "desktop PC!!!!". Great forum guys_________________Carry out the bigger will for your life....